The invention relates generally to the field of mail delivery systems and, more particularly, to methods that detect the presence of life harming materials.
People have directly transmitted information from one person to another. Information was first transmitted by spoken word and later by written word. Writings enabled people to transmit information by messengers from a location in which the sender of the writing was present to another location where the receiver was present. In time, postal services were developed in which a person would deliver letters to the post office in one city, and an agent of the post office would deliver that letter to a post office in another city, where the letter mail would be picked up by the person to whom the letter was sent.
Ever since the numeric codification of streets and buildings received general acceptance, an individual""s name and household postal address have been linked. The sender of a letter or package would deliver a letter or package to the post that had the correct recipient postal address, and the post would deliver the letter or package to the numeric street address of the recipient of the letter or package. A correct recipient postal address for the delivery of the letter or package to the recipient included the name of the recipient; the street address of the recipient; the city and state of the recipient; and the zip code of the recipient. Thus, the correct recipient postal address is usually the actual location of the recipient.
People have used the post and other courier services, e.g., Federal Express(copyright), Airborne(copyright), United Parcel Service(copyright), DHL(copyright), etc., hereinafter called xe2x80x9ccarriersxe2x80x9d, to deliver materials to recipients that the sender does not want to deliver personally. Unfortunately, sometimes the delivered materials may be illegal and/or hazardous to the health of the recipient and to the party who is delivering the goods, e.g. life harming. Examples of life harming materials are explosives, gun powder, blasting material, bombs, detonators, smokeless powder, radioactive materials, ammunition, atomic weapons, chemical compounds or any mechanical mixture containing any oxidizing and combustible units, or other ingredients in such proportions, quantities, or packing that ignite by fire, friction, concussion, percussion or detonation of any part thereof which may and is intended to cause an explosion; poisons; carcinogenic materials; caustic chemicals; hallucinogenic substances; illegal materials; drugs that are illegal to sell and/or dispense; and substances which, because of their toxicity, magnification or concentration within biological chains, present a threat to biological life when exposed to the environment, etc.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a method that enables the carrier of letters, flats and/or packages (hereinafter xe2x80x9cmailxe2x80x9d) that are addressed to a recipient to determine if the mail contains life harming materials before the mail is delivered to the recipient. Thus, the carrier may be able to remove mail from the mail stream before it causes human harm and/or damages property.
This invention accomplishes the foregoing by receiving mail that is addressed to a recipient which contains material that may or may not be life harming; capturing an image of the face of the mail, which includes the name and physical address of the recipient; processing the image on the face of the mail to determine if characteristics of the image match characteristics of known mail that may contain life harming materials; testing the mail if the image contains characteristics that indicate a probability that the mail contains life harming material; and, delivering the mail to the recipient if the image does not contain life harming characteristics.